“It’s not a community that any party has a lock on,” says Ismael Ahmed, the executive director of Access, the biggest Arab-American social services agency in the country, which is based in Dearborn. “Especially a community like this one where 60% weren’t born here. We’re not really committed to either party.”

“We were motivated when we backed Bush and we are motivated now,” says Osama Sablini, Aapac’s chairman and publisher of the Arab American newspaper, who backed Mr Bush four years ago. “The Bush administration has been a major disappointment to this community and we cannot afford four more years of this.”
-Under siege since 9/11, Arab voters shift to Kerry

When the dust settles on this election, a significant shift will have taken place in several key demographics. Due to a random twist of fate, this will be especially true in the swing states.

The resulting shift in traditional party affiliations could very well throw the election to the challenger.

Since early this year, we’ve been watching a number of key voting blocs “flip flop” (sorry) away from their prior voting patterns. The demographic ethnic groups with the greatest potential to impact the 2004 Presdiential election are both Cubans and Hispanics in Florida, and the Arabs-Americans in the Midwest.

Here’s a fascinating compare and contrast analysis, sector by sector, of the impact of each candidate in the election from last week’s WSJ (You may have overlooked it, buried as it was in the Personal section). The Jornal observed: “The economy is at center stage ahead of the Nov. 2 presidential election. Job creation has picked up this year, but employers remain cautious about adding substantially to their payrolls, and employment levels remain below where they were four years ago.”

Thats the gross overview. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty details:

With Election Day less than a month away, Wall Street has already staked out its own winners and losers.

In recent weeks, research analysts at the major brokerage houses have been churning out reports identifying what a Bush or Kerry administration would mean for investment strategies — and which sectors of the economy would undergo the biggest changes if there were a change in leadership. A recent report by equity analysts at Credit Suisse First Boston, for example, notes that with the start of the presidential debates, “we thought this was a good time to revisit the candidates’ health-care platforms and their significance for managed-care stocks.”

Lehman Brothers and investment-strategy firm ISI Group have created “presidential indexes.” The idea is to track the performance of stocks that are likely to be most affected under each administration. ISI’s “Bush Index” holds pharmaceuticals and energy stocks, among others, reflecting the belief those sectors would fare well under a second term for the president. ISI’s “Kerry Index” has short positions in health maintenance organizations and utilities. The indexes act as a proxy for what Wall Street is thinking will happen Nov. 2.”

I continue to hold the position that while the President matters less to the macro economy and the overall market than most people believe, they do have a large impact, on individual sectors. Thus, any change at the top will be significant (at least somewhat) to specific industries. Since its doubtful the House of Representatives will change — that makes the implications of a change in presidential leadership somewhat less significant than it might be otherwise.

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About Barry Ritholtz

Ritholtz has been observing capital markets with a critical eye for 20 years. With a background in math & sciences and a law school degree, he is not your typical Wall St. persona. He left Law for Finance, working as a trader, researcher and strategist before graduating to asset managementRead More...

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